Fort Mose, a free Black town in Spanish Florida

Under a Spanish decree of 1693, people who escaped slavery in the Carolinas and accepted Catholic baptism were granted freedom in Florida. In 1738 the governor settled them at Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, north of St. Augustine, under their militia captain Francisco Menéndez. Its men helped defeat the British at Bloody Mose in 1740, and in 1763 the townspeople left with the Spanish for Cuba.